LIsa Black
Cape Coral, FL
Female, 49
I spent the five happiest years of my life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist in the Cleveland coroner’s office I analyzed gunshot residue on hands and clothing, hairs, fibers, paint, glass, DNA, blood and many other forms of trace evidence, as well as crime scenes. Now I'm a certified latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida. I also write a series of forensic suspense novels, turning the day job into fiction. My books have been translated into six languages.
Titles and job requirements aren't uniform, so the only way to know is to call the crime labs in your area or wherever you might be interested in working and ask them. At the coroner's office we had to have at least a bachelor's in a natural science (this was before they had forensic science majors). At the police department where I am now, they only require a high school diploma but you get more points in the interviewing process for having a four year degree, so we all have one. You can also go on the websites for professional organizations such as the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and check out their job vacancy postings and see what the various positions require. Good luck.
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Take as many science and then math courses as you can.
Best of luck!
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titles and job requirements aren't uniform, so the only way to know is to call the crime labs in your area or whereever you might be interested in working and ask them. At the coroner's office we had to have at least a bachelor's in a natural science (this was before they had forensic science majors). At the police department where I am now, they only require a high school diploma but you get more points in the interviewing process for having a four year degree, so we all have one. You can also go on the websites for professional organizations such as the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and check out their job vacancy postings and see what the various positions require. Good luck.
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Good question. If the surface isn't disturbed and the temperature and humidity are cool and steady, I know fingerprints can last indefinitely, so I suppose skin cells would last as well.
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I couldn’t. I don’t know if a pathologist or biologist could.
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Because fingerprints, tire tracks, footwear impressions and sometimes handwriting can, with sufficient individual characteristics, be identified to a specific person or item. (Glass can as well in the case of a 'jigsaw' match, when it physically fits into a piece of evidence.) These analyses require human attention and thorough training and competency and are not quite as simply done as adding a blood sample to a thermocycler for DNA analysis. Explaining DNA analysis takes a highly trained analyst but the actual process is largely automated.
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It all depends on where you want to work and what they require. At the coroner's office we all had at least a bachelor's degree in a natural science like biology, because there were not any forensic degrees then. If you want to be a DNA analyst you will probably need to major in genetics or biochemistry. At the police department where I work, with our very small lab, we are only required to have a high school diploma--but you get extra points in the interview process for advanced degrees so we all have at least a bachelor's.I don’t know how helpful medical technology would be because that is specifically geared toward a different profession.
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